SC - Period serving practices

[UnruhBays, Melanie A]

I believe what Mistress Aldyth is referring to is this year's Twelfth Night
feast, for which I was the head cook. The feast was an Elizabethan feast,
arranged in the period manner with three main courses and a banquet course.
In between courses, there was dancing, court, and performances by Clan
Tynker, a wonderful troupe of acrobats and magicians. 

Although the feast should have started in the late morning, we opted to
begin in the middle of the afternoon. We got the first course out late, due
to some equipment and staffing problems in the kitchen. Then the courts all
ran long, the dancing ran long, and the schedule continued to slide later
into the evening. As the head cook, I will not send out a course until the
Crown is ready for it, so I take full responsibility for not serving the
subsequent courses as they were ready - we held the second and third courses
for TM pleasure. 

Contrary to Mistress Aldyth's characterization of the feast as being poorly
received, I heard many fine reports. The major problem was that the hour
became very late for those traveling that night, and they had to leave at
about the time that the last course and the banquet were served. I do regret
that, since some of the food for those two courses remained uneaten.
Fortunately, Peerage meetings were held the following day, so it didn't go
to waste. :-)

This is the first feast that I've done stretched over the day. I found out a
couple of very interesting things. First, that the "SCA time" that most
events run on makes it very difficult to serve a feast of this sort in a
timely manner. Every function that runs over the allotted time pushes the
"hit time" of the last course back a little more. Thus, if you're going to
do an all-day feast, someone must maintain complete control over the
schedule. Secondly, being able to work on one set of dishes at a time
relieves a lot of the typical stress and confusion that occurs when you're
trying to get everything done at once. It also allows you time to get
serving platters washed between courses if you don't have enough.

In general, I highly recommend doing the all-day format when you can,
partially because its more period. The main challenge is keeping the
schedule on time.   

Maredudd

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bronwynmgn at aol.com [mailto:Bronwynmgn at aol.com]
> Sent: Monday, February 28, 2000 7:06 PM
> To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
> Subject: Re: SC - Period serving practices
> 
> 
> In a message dated 2/28/2000 5:20:40 PM Eastern Standard 
> Time, Aldyth at aol.com 
> writes:
> 
> << Is there a particular time or place where serving feasts 
> all day long came 
> to 
>  be?  It seems that for the past 6 months a couple of our 
> groups in the 
>  Outlands are insisting on this "period" practice.  I am 
> referring to the 
>  feast starting at noon, with a course every two hours or so, 
> until 8-10 in 
>  the evening.  The feasts have not been well received, nor 
> have they been 
>  particularly "good" >>
> 
> 
> In period, the main meal of the day, the "feast", was served 
> any time between 
> about 11 am and 2 pm, and could last for hours on a festive 
> occasion (among 
> other references, Woolgar, C. M.  The Great Household in Late 
> Medieval England
> .  Yale University Press, copyright 1999.)  Even on a normal 
> day there might 
> be several sittings to accomodate the entire household.   So 
> serving the meal 
> during the day is certainly a period practice, in fact more 
> period than 
> beginning it at 6 pm or later as we usually do.
> 
> As autocrat, I had the cooks prepare such a feast for our 
> shire Twelfth Night 
> two years ago.  Both the cooks and the populace considered it a great 
> success.  The cooks were pleased that they could concentrate 
> on two dishes at 
> a time rather than 8 or 10, and the populace was amazed at 
> the fact that food 
> just kept appearing.  We had very little left.
> 
> Brangwayna Morgan
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